RIGHTS OR RIGHT?

RIGHTS OR RIGHT?

Tuesday, February 28, 2017

2Timothy [MKJV] 3:16-17 All Scripture is God-breathed, and is profitable for doctrine, for reproof, for correction, for instruction in righteousness, that the man of God may be perfected, thoroughly furnished to every good work.

Hebrews 13:8 Jesus Christ the same yesterday and today and forever.

1Peter 1:22-25 Purifying your souls in the obedience of the truth through the Spirit to unfeigned love of the brothers, love one another fervently out of a pure heart, having been born again, not of corruptible seed, but of incorruptible, through the living Word of God, and abiding forever. For all flesh is as grass, and all the glory of men as the flower of the grass. The grass withers, and its flower falls out, but the Word of the Lord endures forever. And this is the Word preached as gospel to you.

  Jesus, God Incarnate, The Word, is our example and guide. (Jn.1:1) The Word is not capricious or subjective to changing times or human whimsy. (Isa.55:8-9; Heb.6:18; 13:8) It is our responsibility to study the words and example of the Word as recorded in the Old and New Testaments for it is therewith that we may rightly decide and act on the issues of life. (Ps.119:11; 2Tim.2:15; 3:16-17; 1Pet.1:22-25) This however is obviously not always an easy thing to do. The following news bit once again reveals this quandary in Christendom.

  Bernard’s Township, New Jersey USA. Town planners told leaders of a planned mosque they would need a large number of parking spaces; this requirement killing the possibility of building. A federal judge ruled that under the Religious Land Use and Institutionalized Persons Act the board’s action is illegal discrimination.

  The Islamic Society of Basking Ridge and Mohammad Ali Chaudry filed a complaint. Those supporting the mosque group included the International Mission Board and the Ethics and Religious Liberty Commission of the Southern Baptist Convention (ERLC). Among those disagreeing is John Wofford, pastor of Armorel Baptist Church, Blytheville, Arkansas, At the ERLC 2016 annual meeting Wofford challenged president Russell Moore as to how “someone within the Southern Baptist Convention can support the defending of rights for Muslims to construct mosques in the United Stated when these people threaten our very way of existence as Christians and Americans?”

  Responding, Moore emphasized religious liberty and sincere belief and the matter of if mosques can be banned so could Baptist churches. “The answer to Islam is not government power. The answer is the gospel of Jesus Christ and the new birth that comes from that.”

  Pushing back, Wofford’s letter published in the Arkansas Baptist News said “Would Jesus Christ stand in a court of law, defending the rights of a false religion to erect mosques, temples or other places of worship which are clearly in violation of the First and Second Commandments of God?”

  For some the above issue is easily decided by knee-jerk emotion or religious denomination party line or even political ideology.

  But what saith the Word? What has He done? What would (will?) He do? What is right?

EBB4